Ingrid -- It's not the lighting . . . It's the terribly hot weather we had, while these first blooms were developing. So, yes. It's normally considerably darker, and with more of a purple tinge, and unless our temp rises up near 100 again soon, those blooms will follow. Here's one opening today:

Oh dear. We have had a few days in the 100s already and Old Town Novato’s gorgeous, delicate petals are like flambé. Or s’mores roasted over the fire. I was so excited about all these buds, SOOO MANY, but now they’re all sunburnt. The other roses near it were not quite as affected. Hubner Plot handles heat like it’s no problem (cream colored, far left). The thick petals of La Rose de Molinard show no sun burn at all (bright coral pink, far right). WWII Memorial got a bit of sun burn and melting too (grayish pink, bottom), but none had as much damage as Old Town Novato. (Photos below hopefully show, Houzz has been weird lately)... The delicate, thin petals are crispy on all the blooms, but also the buds and and I’m not sure they will even open now. :-( I remember now this happened last year too. We get intense heat waves too early for this rose here. We go right into summer weather in April. It likes NorCal obviously, but i think it likes the microclimates a little milder (say like... Novato). ;-) I think I’m going to need to move it to the shade, where it gets only morning sun so the lovely blooms have a chance here. It will have to mingle with my rhodies and azaleas. Luckily it seems easily trainable and the bush habit itself is simply lovely and extremely healthy, so I think it will look great over there mingling with the rhodies too.

how can anyone resist those flowers??? I cannot. :) Thank you Jeri! Looks a lot like MIP. I find that look irresistible and I am picking many roses with similar coloring. I have to be careful! Qualitatively, how does the fragrance compare to MIP? Does it bloom more than MIP?

I see now that the HMF description (written by??) says: ”Tall, arching, armed with thorns / prickles, bushy, suckers on its own roots, upright. Large, matte, medium green, fragrant foliage. 3 to 7 leaflets.” (In addition to the comment by Cass that you quoted, Linda.) I wonder if ”suckers on its own roots” was added after Cass‘ experience…or was it original to the text when OTN was first listed on HMF? Completely different rose, but my 18-year-old Rose de Rescht started suckering after 7-8 years while others on the forum with mature RdR plants say that they have never experienced spreading through baby volunteers popping up around the mother plant. BUT 20 years is a long time for a potentially ”suckering plant” not to sucker at all. In my experience, suckering plants sucker sooner or later, more or less, closer or farther to the main plant, etc., but they usually sucker in some way…eventually. So, Jeri your experience with OTN as a non suckering rose after 20 years matches my own experiences with non suckering roses. But not Cass’ experience with her sucking OTN. (Inserting puzzled face.) Isn’t there an OTN plant in the San Jose Rose Garden? Carol